ABSTRACT
Although democracy manifests itself in many forms (see Held 1987), three broad types have been debated in the literature around children and young people’s participation. First, ‘representational democracy’ involves the model of a large number of people voting for someone to represent their views from a menu of candidates. By way of contrast, ‘participatory democracy’ emphasises the greater involvement of everyone in decision making. This involves the democratisation of everyday life beyond assemblies, parliaments and councils. Third, ‘deliberative democracy’ lies somewhere in between these forms and involves a selection (possibly randomly chosen, using a structured sample design, not necessarily ‘elected’) to represent the make-up of a population. In the forum, participants hear evidence, then question the evidence and discuss it among themselves, i.e. they deliberate.
